


Not in Love

by haveyouseenmymind



Series: The Tapestry of Love [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Pining, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unrequited Love, coping mechanism including alcohol and sex, we don't know what Bones thinks, well kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 22:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15650496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haveyouseenmymind/pseuds/haveyouseenmymind
Summary: Jim has done the one thing he never wanted: He fell in love.





	Not in Love

Jim hates this. He feels like a sappy idiot that doesn’t know what to do with himself. It’s annoying, the insecurity and this mushy feeling in his gut that makes his insides all tingly.

God, this all just sucks.

He lets out a long suffered groan, as he drops his head on the table next to his beer, and closes his eyes. Maybe, if he’ll wish really hard, those irritating thoughts in his head will just go away and everything will return to normal.

Because he’s definitely not in love. That’s just impossible, as number one rule of the universe simply states that James Tiberius Kirk doesn’t do love. Never has and never will.

He has witnessed how love can destroy people. How his mother yearns for a man long gone, who had acted out of love and despite trying to save his wife, Winona Kirk had lost herself the day her husband gave his life for his family.

Jim doesn’t blame her, though. His mother had tried her best, but how do you care for someone else, when you can’t even heal your own broken heart?

So he had decided early in his life to do what every other sane person should do: To never fall in love, to be a storm raging through the world, being loud and wrecking havoc, and never letting himself be touched.

But one cantankerous southern doctor and all his oaths were gone with the wind.

He groans again, pitying himself and the mess he somehow has gotten himself into without even realizing. It had crept upon him slowly, had made itself home in his heart without his consent and had started devouring him from the inside out, not caring about Jim or how this could destroy the first real friendship he ever had.

God, Jim really hates this.

Hates, how his thoughts keep straying back to Bones, even when he’s in the middle of something else, the doctor nowhere around. It’s moments like this where he loses the interest in his surroundings, his mind buzzing with the need to know how is friend is faring. 

Hates, how he catches himself being overexcited every time before he’s supposed to meet up with Bones, and how he still has to hold himself back from spending every possible minute with him, as he’s pestering the man enough as it is.

Hates, how the gnawing feeling of jealousy in his gut intensifies when Bones flirts with someone else, his own head mocking his stupid heart that hurts with bittersweetness, cause in the end everything Jim wants, is for his friend to be happy.

And if Jim isn’t the one who can give him that? Well, who is he to deny Bones what he wants, and more than anything else deserves? And so he watches from the sideline, throwing himself back into action, goes home with the next willing person, while he embraces that feeling of loneliness, that slowly starts creeping up in him.

Dammit, who is he kidding? He can’t even deceive himself.

Not with the way warmth spreads through him every time Bones gives him one of those rare relaxed smiles, the ones that make him afraid to slowly burn out? He knows it, feels it with every fiber of his being that it’s a lost case.

He’s in love with his best friend.

And he’s tired. So tired.

Of course he had tried to get rid of his feelings.

He had flirted around campus, had tried to distract himself. At one point he even had fled from San Francisco, had grabbed his bag after his last course on a Friday afternoon and took the next shuttle out of the city.

It hadn’t been important where he went to, the only thing that had mattered was getting away from Bones and his feelings.

Oh, he had tried to forget them. Had tried to drown them in alcohol and a handsome brunet, who, after Jim had woken up with his head throbbing and his mouth dry as a dessert, reminded him too much of the man he had wanted to get fucked out of his mind.

After that weekend he had been completely wrecked. Instead of getting away, putting some distance between himself and Bones, his feelings had been hitting him with full force.

One look at Bones, when the man had stepped back in their shared dorm room the Monday after that clusterfuck, and he had been back spiralling downwards, faster than before, with the addition of guilt and self-loathing.

He had hidden himself under his blanket as soon as the doctor had looked at him, had turned around to the wall in hope that he would leave him alone, take it as one of Jim’s weird quirks.

But of course his friend had to disappoint him. Instead, he had sat down on Jim’s bed, next to the lump built by the blond hidden away from his view, and suddenly all that Jim had felt through the blanket was a warm hand on his shoulder, but the thumb slowly rubbing circles into the cloth, trying to sooth him, was even worse.

That had been the last straw, and so he had started to weep silent tears, his body shaking like a leave trying to last through a storm. Bones had stayed by his side, strong and silent comfort, but at the same time the source of his sadness.

They hadn’t talked about it afterwards, and to Jim’s utter relief, the brunet hadn’t asked any questions.

A loud clunk on the table, probably from another beer sat down, interrupts his thoughts and tells him that his time alone, wallowing in misery, has been cut short. He hears shuffling and someone sitting down across from him, so he slowly opens one eye to see who has interfered with his brooding.

It’s Bones, one eyebrow raised and staring curiously at him. Jim whines and turns his head away to escape those hazel eyes. Of course it’s Bones. Leave it to the source of his emotional distress to find him when he’s trying to figure some shit out.

“Jesus Jim, what’s got you all mopy? Uhura finally kicked your ass? Sorry kid, but you had that coming.”

Jim mumbles a whiny “Go away” into the table.This really isn’t one of his proudest moments, but so far this hasn’t been a good night anyway.

He raises himself up from the table to glare at Bones, but the brunet just snorts into his beer before he puts it back down.

And there it is again, that smile, full of fondness for his idiot friend, the one that softens his features and makes him look like the weight of the world has just slipped off his shoulders.

Yeah, Jim is absolutely in love.


End file.
